The Supreme Court administration has asked all subordinate courts across the country to form committees to receive complaints of sexual harassment of their own institutions, investigate them and make necessary recommendations.
Md Badrul Alam Bhuiyan, Registrar of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and also a member of the Supreme Court Committee for receiving complaints on sexual harassment, issued a notification on Wednesday in this regard.
The notification asked all the District and Sessions Judge Courts, Metropolitan Sessions Judge Courts, Chief Judicial Magistrate Courts and Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Courts to form a committee in order to receive allegations of sexual harassment, to inquire into the received allegations and to make necessary recommendations, following the High Court guidelines delivered on May 14 in 2009.
It also asked the subordinate courts to submit a compliance report to the issuer of the notification within 15 working days after receipt of the letter.
The notification was issued according to the decision of a meeting of the Supreme Court Committee for receiving complaints on sexual harassment. Justice Krishna Debnath, a judge of the Appellate Division of the SC and also the Chairman of the Supreme Court Committee for receiving complaints on sexual harassment, presided over the meeting.
Following a writ petition, the HC on May 14, 2009, issued a set of guidelines defining sexual misdemeanours to prevent any kind of physical, mental or sexual harassment of women, girls and children at work and public places and educational institutions in the country.
The HC directed the government to make a law based on the guidelines and ruled that the guidelines must be ‘treated as law’ until the law had been made.
The court directed the authorities to form a female-led five-member harassment complaint committee at every workplace and institution to investigate allegations of women harassment. The majority of the committee members must be women, it also ruled.
According to the guidelines, nobody can touch or hurt the body of a girl or woman with bad intention, any indecent word or comment cannot be used against them, and any unknown adult girl or woman cannot be addressed as ‘beautiful’ with bad intention.
The HC prohibited the authorities concerned to disclose the names and addresses of the complainants and accused people until the allegations are proved.
It also criminalised teasing women and children through e-mail or telephone and ordered that any kind of provocation or character assassination must be stopped.